Le Guin's Hainish series begins with the assumption that centuries ago humanoids from the planet Hain ventured through the solar system establishing colonies on various planets including Earth. For mysterious reasons these colonies lose all contact and knowledge of each other until the 21st century when an attempt is made to establish a galactic league. Individual stories in this loosely organized series explore the inherent communication difficulties...

A group of political dissidents and their families escape the repressive world of twenty-first-century Earth to seek new lives as interstellar colonists, placing themselves in cold sleep for a two-century odyssey to the habitable world of Coyote.

"Black Jack" Geary orders the Alliance Fleet back to the Lakota Star System, where it had almost been destroyed by the Syndics, in a desperate gamble to stay one step ahead of the enemy.

Shel and his friend Dave journey through time in search of Shel's missing physicist-father, but make a devastating discovery that changes their lives forever when Shel violates their agreement not to visit the future.

Awakened from a cryogenic sleep to win the century-long conflict between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds, Captain John "Black Jack" Geary discovers that his loyalty is being questioned and suspects that he is being deliberately sent on a suicide mission.